The McKinnon Foundation’s Democracy Index and the Scanlon report, both released last week, document a structural rather than momentary strain on Australia’s democratic institutions. Two independent research bodies now record declining trust, rising cynicism and a widening gap between elected representatives and the people they serve. Almost half the population, according to the survey findings, believe politicians do not understand “people like me”, a figure that should concern anyone responsible for the health of the country’s representative institutions.
The survey goes further, cataloguing the specific complaints citizens level at their political class: that politicians are out of touch with the grassroots, lack transparency, fail to listen or involve community, favour vested interests, may be corrupt, and place party allegiance above all else, treating reelection as more important than doing the hard things. These are not the grumbles of a fringe. They amount to a systematic indictment of how power is being exercised, and they arrive at a moment when the urgency of a reset, first promised after the Bondi shooting and the alleged attack on the independent MP Helen Haines, has only grown.
The international context sharpens the point. Writing in The Guardian, Julianne Schultz observes that a new generation of American Democrats demonstrated this week that listening and responding to real grievance is more powerful than retribution, offering voters the chance to reject chaos, division and big money politics (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/nov/08/listening-more-powerful-than-politics-of-division-us-midterms-australia-ntwnfb). In doing so, they joined politicians in Brazil, Serbia and Hungary in showing there is nothing inevitable about populist authoritarianism. Democratic resets, the argument runs, can be progressive. Donald Trump’s talent for sensing grievance and promising his supporters “I am your retribution” found its limits when opponents actually engaged with the underlying pain.
Australia’s own grievance is alive and well. Few public figures, Schultz argues, have mastered the ability to hear what is being said, distil it and provide a path forward. The public instead meets talking points and manufactured lines that reveal little insight into real anxiety and hopelessness. The familiar parliamentary refrain, “we know people out there are hurting”, does not help. Constituents are not on another planet; they are people with real concerns, talked to like figures on a white board and told to be patient even as support fails to live up to promises.
The accountability question is sharpened by the contrast between styles of political leadership. Pauline Hanson is not alone in encouraging anger and promising retribution; Angus Taylor is working on it too. Hanson’s lack of sophistication, Schultz notes, helps her: supporters say she sounds authentic because she speaks like people they know. Her inability to deliver, to manage the complexity of public administration, trips up the insiders, but people sense she hears them. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese may be right that the times suit him, and that by the election in 2028 the world may change. It might not. The warning signs are multiplying.
The response to the alleged assault on Haines illustrates the institutional problem. The immediate reaction was to emphasise threats facing elected representatives and increase security, which many MPs noted sat at odds with the nature of the job: being available to those they represent. The accessibility problem runs deeper than security protocols. Attending a function where a minister or senior figure speaks requires pre-booking, identification, scans and explanations. Officials move rapidly between brief encounters, staff poised to move their principal to the next important person. This is the antithesis of real communication, and it ensures little that might challenge the prevailing worldview gets through.
The painful paradox, Schultz writes, is that Haines herself was at the forefront of doing politics differently. The locally embedded model developed by former independent MP Cathy McGowan in Indi remains a profound challenge to the top-down, internally focused model of party politics. Community independents are not alone in listening; the best MPs and their staff do it daily. But it gets harder near the centre of power, where demands are greater, threats more acute and opportunities to listen fewer, even as the need grows.
There is precedent for institutional reform that works. Nearly three decades ago, when Peter Beattie was elected Queensland premier, he depended on one independent and realised he had to listen harder, apologise when needed, and explain what he was doing and why. He introduced two transformative innovations: cabinet meetings held across the state with open forums, and monthly mandatory meetings where department heads sat in town halls while residents lined up to question, complain and suggest. “The department heads hated it,” he recalled recently, but it pulled them out of the bubble and reshaped decisions.
Trust in government is falling, but trust goes two ways. Those in power must learn to trust those they represent, and that, Schultz concludes, will be essential to any reset that goes beyond retribution.